


Sulking Rights

by Ros3mary



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Descriptions of gunshots and fog mostly, Mild Gore, Realistic Video Games, Shenanigans, don’t ask where this came from because i dont know, no beta we die like men, ttt, vr games
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-15
Updated: 2020-07-15
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:15:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25293034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ros3mary/pseuds/Ros3mary
Summary: Being the glitch had never been Michael’s favorite dance, but it sure did seem handy now. “Boi?” He asked, purposefully asking only Gavin.A little smirk curved half of Gavin’s lips up, seeming partly smug, but mostly delighted. He gave Michael a small nod, probably thinking he was being slick. Michael’s fingers twitched over the trigger even as he put the shotgun parallel to his side. Might as well play the long game now.
Relationships: Gavin Free & Michael Jones
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	Sulking Rights

**Author's Note:**

> Gmod: TTT, All Aboard The Traitor Train, 21:20 through 22:20 had me thinking
> 
> so anyways i wanted to practice figurative writing and i also wanted to write platonic mavin and this round of TTT seemed perfect for both

A heavy gloom settled over the ghost town like dirty snow, grimy and heavy. The night was humid, the ink sky sending fog curling hissing hands around Michael’s feet. His flashlight did almost nothing to illuminate the silvery darkness, and the moonlight was pale and washed-out, barely there, the moon herself slivered and tired above his head. Anticipation reared an ugly head in his chest, heart thrumming a steady drumbeat against the walls of his chest.

Michael swung the tip of his gun ahead of him as he turned down an alleyway, and the fog parted lovingly around the black metal of it, like the ocean parting for a jagged stone. There was no movement ahead, so Michael started to creep down the alley, his footsteps heavy in the silence. He kept checking over his shoulder, hooking dark, adrenaline edged glances to the fog behind him. 

The sudden sounds of a distant explosion made Michael flinch, his eyes whipping around him, though all he could see was fog and tall, graffitied walls. 

“ _ Uh, what was that? _ ” Ryan’s voice filtered through Michael’s earpiece, and he reflexively lifted his hand up to rest on it, ready to press the tiny button that would broadcast his reply, just in case.

“ _Welp_. ” Jack’s voice was calm, but a bit pitched up. “ _ Someone exploded a barrel right in front of me. _ ” Michael dropped his hand from the earpiece as he turned another corner. Whether or not Jack died was of no concern to him as of now, so he deigned not to respond. The fog weaved around him as he moved, and something in the way the night lay heavy and unbroken about him seemed to agree with his silence.

Michael’s eyes swept up the walls and lingered hard on the rooftops. They were flat, and the sky was so dark any silhouettes would be invisible. A shiver tore its way through Michael’s shoulders as he thought,  _ Fuck, I hope Alfredo doesn’t have a sniper. _ If the other lad was popping snipes on the rooftops, Michael would be helpless to it. The shotgun in his hands seemed to hum in sympathy, it knowing, too, that it wouldn’t be kind to him in that situation.

“ _ There’s that noise again! _ ” Jeremy yelled through Michael’s earpiece. Michael didn’t hear any noise except for his own footsteps. Not even a cricket chirped in this cold, empty down. 

Jeremy’s comment stirred conversation like flies converging onto a corpse. It seemed every gun-heavy man in the communications had something to say about it. Michael winced at the influx of noise, hand jerking up to turn down the volume of the others’ loud voices.

Michael started trooping up a grey-stoned slab of stairs and suddenly understood what Jeremy had meant. A low hum filled his ears as he climbed, kind of a buzzing bass, and the cracked concrete under his boots shook faintly. Jeremy and Ryan started saying things about a floodlight, and Michael’s head tipped to the side, curiosity piqued. 

“Is that what that sound is?” He asked, fingertips indenting into the smooth button on his tiny black earpiece, so that the others would hear his comment. A chorus of confirming responses chimed at him. 

“ _Fredo’s dancing around like a weirdo_ , ” Jack said gleefully over the comms. Michael’s boots crunched over broken concrete, and he followed the head of his shotgun as it rounded another corner. The stairs plateaued onto a sort of bridging balcony. On Michael’s right was another rising stone wall, and on his left, a twirling, jagged iron wrought railing. 

Movement made Michael flinch, and drew his eyes towards Alfredo’s figure, doing some sort of weird, jerky tap-dance. He followed Alfredo’s gaze down to a courtyard walled by buildings, where Jack’s form was visible through the thick fog. The heavy silver clouds were more of a faint, trailing mist now that Michael wasn’t on the ground, and it made some of the tension ease out of his shoulders.

He walked right past Alfredo without saying anything, silently appreciative that the gun in the other’s hands wasn’t a sniper rifle. 

The bridge was framed by walls again soon, and Michael couldn’t help but jump as he turned down the way and saw a person standing there, outlined in black against a wall that, for whatever reason, seemed faintly lit up purple. The person turned, and Michael’s hands on the shotgun became a little bit more alert, the tip dipping up towards a sun-kissed face staring at Michael under a mop of unruly blonde hair.

“What?” Gavin asked, and Michael grimaced slightly at the reverb-esque echo from the earpiece. 

“Nothin’,” Michael said, not turning on the mic, so that the others wouldn’t hear. 

He could barely see Gavin’s eyes through the silver-glassed visors they all wore. If not for the way purple light splashed over the other lad’s face in splotches and lit up his green eyes, Michael would have missed the way Gavin’s eyes oh so briefly turned upwards to the red “R” that his visor would be showing over Michael’s head.

Michael’s own gaze dipped into the bottom of his vision, where his own visor proudly displayed his role. 

Being the glitch had never been Michael’s favorite dance, but it sure did seem handy now. “Boi?” He asked, purposefully asking only Gavin.

A little smirk curved half of Gavin’s lips up, seeming partly smug, but mostly delighted. He gave Michael a small nod, probably thinking he was being slick. Michael’s fingers twitched over the trigger even as he put the shotgun parallel to his side. Might as well play the long game now. 

“Do you know who the detective is?” Michael asked, sidling up to Gavin’s side so he could keep his voice low. 

“I think it’s Jack or Ryan,” Gavin answered. His lips barely moved, and Michael had to tilt his head slightly to catch it. “I couldn’t tell who’s head it was above. All this bloody fog, you know.”

Michael nodded faintly. He started sketching out a rough plan in his head, deciding to bring Gavin towards the detective, so that he wouldn’t end up silently splattered all over the graffitied walls of this goddamn ghost town. “I saw Jack back there,” Michael said, hooking his thumb over his shoulder to where he came from. “He was alone,” He added, lying easily. 

Gavin tipped his chin a little to meet Michael’s eyes, and the familiar twist of annoyance at their height difference pinched Michael’s stomach. “Going for the detective right away’s a little risky, innit, boi?”

“Good payoff,” Michael murmured back. Gavin’s smile showed teeth, white bouncing purple in the eerie wall lights, and the taller lad started leading the way back towards the shadowed courtyard Jack had been in. 

Michael followed, and the sounds of their heavy footsteps combined made his skin itch with goosebumps. Their boots tromped over broken, dirty concrete, puffing loud thumps out like dust, then bounced away down the tall walls, only to crawl back to them with an eerie echo of strangeness to them. 

“This is it,” Michael whispered, his eyes roaming over the familiar bridging balcony. 

The courtyard where Jack had been was empty. Gavin’s hand curled over the rusty black railing as he peered down into it, his back to Michael. 

Michael sucked in a puffy breath, shoulders rising with little notches of tension as he desperately looked around. They were alone. 

_One traitor down is worth the risk_ ,  Michael told himself. And then, ironically, his thoughts added,  _ Good payoff. _

The soft click of his shotgun’s safety flicking off wasn’t loud enough to break the fog. Michael lifted the gun up with steady hands, the dark, hungry head of it pointed directly at the back of Gavin’s messy hair. Michael took another deep breath, ready to take the shot.

That was when Ryan’s voice pierced through his earpiece. “ _ Gah! Boomerang! _ ” Ryan said, voice clipped and quick with fear. “ _ There’s a boomerang bouncing around me! _ ”

Panic lanced through Michael’s chest. His eyes went wide. Gavin stilled abruptly, back going ramrod straight, and then the other turned to face Michael, eyes holding an emotion that Michael couldn’t discern through the silver shaded visor. Again, Gavin’s murky green eyes twitched up above Michael’s head.

For a long, long moment, neither of them moved.

“Fuck!” Michael yelled suddenly, firing off a shot. Gavin just barely jumped out of the way, jerking his own pistol out of the holster and launching two quick responses out to Michael. One went wide over his shoulder, and the other tore through his arm. “Shit,” Michael added, with feeling, turning on his heel and sprinting down the way. 

He could hear Gavin’s own footsteps pounding down after him, and as he ran past the strange purple corner again, he flicked a grenade out behind him and ran like his life depended on it. Which, to be fair, it did.

The explosion rocked the wall that Michael came to lean on, and Gavin’s coughing echoed very, very faintly in the distance. 

“Goddamn,” Michael muttered, poking tentatively at the wound he’d acquired. A rivulet of blood traced its way down his black leather jacket, a tiny stream in the canyons of the wrinkles in the fabric. Hissing, Michael jerked off the jacket altogether and dropped it. The green camo long-sleeve underneath was warm with blood all down the sleeve. 

Michael wrapped a hasty layer of gauze over the bullet wound, then pushed off the concrete wall and started a quick pace through the dark, foggy alleys again. 

His boots scuffed over a steep staircase as he skipped down it, taking the stairs two at a time. He was desperate for a populated area, knowing that Gavin was probably searching for him right now. The thought of being hunted made Michael shudder, hand flexing over the cold handle of his shotgun. If he didn’t want to see the end of this little traitor game so bad, he’d have turned around and fought, but he was reluctant to let himself take too many wounds this early on.

He turned a corner that had a blinding light slanting over his visor, and Michael flinched. The flashlight beam dipped down towards the ground, and Michael squinted through the fog, seeing Jack and Jeremy standing in front of him.

“Michael, was that a boomerang?” Jeremy asked, voice going double through the earpiece as well. The man’s voice was tickled with laughter, as per usual, always sounding like he was riding the shirttails of a joke. 

“No,” Michael said, frowning at the two. “Calm down.”

“Oh, it might have been your gauntlet,” Jeremy amended, and Michael looked down at the shiny silver-white metal of his gloves. 

“I’m also nowhere near Ryan,” Michael added, following the two as Jeremy wandered into a brightly lit house, yellowing lights spilling over yellowing walls inside. 

Jeremy laughed a little more, faintly. “I know, but-,”

“He’s yelling about boomerangs so you’re seeing boomerangs,” Michael told him. The front door of the house gaped into darkness as he glanced over his shoulder, fog seeping into the wood floor from the outside. 

Jeremy and Jack went through the hallway towards the back of the house, and Michael was behind them, heart thudding in his throat. All he had to do was get Jack, who brandished a proud blue “D” over his head, alone so he could tell him about Gavin. 

The two J’s crowded into a little room, ammo clicking around their boots as they stepped over the grey boxes, both of them giggling and whispering about something. Michael stood a step away from the doorframe. A victorious little smile curved his lips, and he opened his mouth to tell them, and-

And a bullet pierced through Michael’s shoulder. He froze. Jeremy screamed something, half-swallowed by shocked laughter, and Michael turned towards the still-open door of the house.

Gavin stood on the sidewalk. Michael saw his own bloody jacket hanging from Gavin’s belt, and a wicked, toothy smile lighting up Gavin’s face. Somehow a splatter of blood had gotten onto the lad’s sun-kissed cheek, and he looked maniacal, faint steam curling from the lip of his pistol. 

Gavin winked, and Michael heard the pistol fire again before he blacked out and his head hit the ground. 

Fuck being the glitch, seriously. 

Achievement Hunter crowded into their office, trading boisterous laughs and clinking cheers from the bottle of their beers, but Michael sulked, leant against a wall as if he were in prom again. He was still sour that Gavin had killed him in the last round, without even being caught for it in the end, either. If only he’d shot sooner when he had Gavin’s back to him. 

Michael’s eyes landed on the other, who was deep in a conversation with Jeremy, waving his hands so expressively that Michael wouldn’t be surprised to find beer stains on their carpet tomorrow. The blonde suddenly stilled, then turned around to face Michael. He wandered away from Jeremy and up to Michael with a face-splitting grin, seeming real pleased with himself. Michael scowled at him. 

“My boi!” Gavin said happily, slinging an arm over Michael’s shoulders. 

“Fuck off, Gav,” Michael said back, shoving Gavin’s touching hands away. Despite the faintest hint of bite to the words, he was already forcing down a smile. 

“Sore loser?” Gavin teased, eyes crinkling in the corner when he smiled.

Michael flipped him the bird.

Gavin tossed his head back and laughed, and it prompted a chuckle out of Michael, too. “You tricked me! If anything, I should be sulky, yeah?”

“You can have sulking rights when you get a bullet through your brain,” Michael said. 

“Well, I did, didn’t I?” Gavin said. “That’s why the innocents won again.”

“You deserved it,” Michael told him seriously, and Gavin’s nose crinkled.

“You’re cruel,” Gavin said.

Michael flailed his arms out, and Gavin flinched away, laughing. “You killed me!” Michael crowed, smiling broadly now, too. “What do you expect me to do, bend over and suck your dick in thanks?”

“ _Mi_ - cool,” Gavin scolded, shaking his head. He brightened after just a moment, tilting his head towards the others as he said happily, “Let’s go get them to play another round!” 

Michael rolled his eyes fondly. “No, dude, the VR makes us all sick. Unless you wanna end up in the bathroom on your knees again like last time.”

“Gross,” Gavin said, giggling a little. He grabbed Michael’s wrist and started dragging him towards Jack and Ryan, saying, “I wanna play another round, Michael-boi. We can be friends this time.”

“Oh, can we?” Michael said around a smirk, willingly letting Gavin pull him along. “I dunno, maybe I want revenge.”

Gavin stopped in his tracks and turned to stare at Michael, affronted, but Michael only laughed loudly as he twisted his wrist out of Gavin’s long fingers. 

“Fine, one more round,” He said, and Gavin beamed at him, all sunshine and crow’s feet.

Okay, maybe being the glitch wasn’t that bad. 


End file.
